


Miss Fortune

by Milieu



Series: 33 Day Guro Challenge [29]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: 33 Day Guro Challenge, Dark Fantasy, Evil Player Character, F/M, Magic-Users, Memory Magic, Mind Manipulation, Non-Chronological, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 14:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10492935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieu/pseuds/Milieu
Summary: Abigail wanted adventure. She gets more than she bargained for.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 29 - Burn

Abigail isn't sure when she first realized something was wrong. It was hard to tell with Sebastian, difficult even for someone who had known him his whole life to chip away and peel back the many layers of armor he cocooned himself in daily and really get at the heart of the matter when something was bothering him. Abigail supposed that was part of why it had taken a while to pick up on it: it didn't seem like anything was bothering him.

He seemed... happy.

And well, you know, far be it for Abigail to zero in on actual happiness as totally out of the ordinary for Sebastian, but when things were odd they were odd. She supposes that the first thing that nagged at her was seeing that new girl, Moira, just walk into Sebastian's family's house and then down into his bedroom like she owned the place. She had only been there since the spring, and Sebastian didn't open up easily to strangers, Abigail remembers thinking, but maybe there was something about Moira that just made them click. 

And so she had shrugged it off that day and gone back to playing her flute, but the feeling of oddness persisted.

It wasn't like Moira could just waltz in if Sebastian didn't want her to, right?

\---

The sword is heavy in her hand and her palms are sweating and her legs are aching and her chest is burning, but Abigail runs faster than she ever has in her life, tearing down the road that leads out of town and to the bustling little farm in the west. Dark clouds are gathering on the horizon and part of her wonders if they're just an astonishingly appropriate display of weather or something less natural. The air is thick and heavy with the storm about to break.

There is a storm inside her as well, lightning in her eyes and at her fingertips, thunder rumbling up in her chest, her entire body singing with desperation and rage and  _power_.

 _Hurricane Abigail_ , she thinks, and if she wasn't so out of breath and the situation so inappropriate for it, she could have laughed.

\---

"Are you jealous?" Moira asks her without preamble, a knowing smile on her lips.

"Huh?" Abigail snaps out of her focus on Sebastian and Sam's game of pool (Sam was losing terribly, like always) and turns to look at Moira, who had seated herself on the couch next to her. "Jealous?" Abigail repeats once she processes what had been said.

Moira tilts her head to the side, still smiling, and Abigail is taken aback at the sudden burst of disgust that blooms in her chest at the sight of that smile. What's wrong with her?

"I keep hearing that you and Sebby are close, that's all."  _Sebby_ _?_ "I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was muscling in on your territory or anything."

Moira's eyes are so very green. 

An odd, sleepy, soothing feeling settles over Abigail as she looks into those eyes. "Well, of course I'm not..." She feels her words slur, tongue suddenly clumsy. Moira's smile widens. Sebastian and Sam remain absorbed in their game, their jokes and exclamations suddenly seeming muffled and far away.

"Sebastian's my friend," Abigail manages.  _My friend_ , something in her whispers.  _Mine, not yours. You've only been here a summer._

_Why is everyone so into you all of a sudden_ _?_

Okay, maybe she is a little jealous of how Sebastian and Sam and apparently everyone else suddenly loved Moira after all.

Maybe that's why she snaps back to full awareness with a jolt, realizing how she had been swaying on the couch. She straightens up abruptly, and Moira's smile disappears.

"I'm going to get food," Abigail loudly announces, standing and drawing the boys' attention. "Pizza- who wants pizza?" She turns and stares directly into Moira's eyes again. "You like pizza, right?"

Moira smiles again, but this time it's small and tight and very clearly forced, and Abigail doesn't know why but she gets a perverse thrill out of the displeasure that only she seems aware of.

"If you're buying, I'll take a slice," Moira says with measured cheer. The boys voice their agreement with rather more enthusiasm.

The extra money is worth the victory that she just scored, whatever it was.

\---

"You can't have him!" She screams, planting herself between Moira and Sebastian as he lays prone on the floor. Her arm stings with the telltale feeling of a forming burn, but she shrugs it off. "You can't have any of them, you hear me!?" 

Abigail grips the sword with both hands, leveling it directly at Moira. There is no trace of a smile on her face, a thin trail of blood oozing from the cut on her cheek that Abigail had inflicted when she burst in.

"You don't belong here! This isn't your town!"

Moira draws a dagger with a strange, curved blade, keeping her eyes locked on Abigail's. "I belong wherever I wish to be, and I'll have whatever and whomever I want," she replied coldly. "You're the only one here who doesn't seem to understand that, Abby."

"Don't call me that," Abigail snarls. "You're not my friend. You're not _anybody's_ friend. All you are is a fraud and a liar!"

Moira's eyes flash dangerously, and she lunges with unexpected speed. Abigail squeals with pain when the dagger grazes her ribs, but she has enough clarity to swing the pommel of the sword upwards, smashing the hilt into Moira's stomach, winding her.

Electricity arcs from the sword and the dagger's blades as they scrape against each other. Moira jerks back in surprise.

Abigail finds her footing and grins, despite the pain and the blood that she can feel seeping through her shirt. "You're not the only magician around here, bitch."

\---

"Hello! Wizard?" Abigail yells, banging on the heavy wooden door sealing the tower shut. "Wizard, are you there?"

She beats on the door for another few minutes before it slowly begins to creak open, revealing the Wizard's suspicious scowl. "...What do you want with me, girl?" He is less gruff than his expression would have led her to believe.

"I need-" she cuts herself off as something occurs to her. "Um... have you spoken to the new farmer at all? Moira?"

There is something inscrutable in the way he regards her. "I have spoken with her only once, to help her commune with the juminos in the Community Center."

"...What?" Only about half that sentence means anything to Abigail, but it's the important half. "Okay, but you've only spoken to her once. She hasn't... done anything to you."

The Wizard narrows his eyes, but Abigail gets the sense that his displeasure isn't directed towards her. "Explain yourself, girl."

Abigail takes a deep breath. "This is going to sound crazy... or maybe not, since you're, y'know, magic, but-" She cuts herself off again, shaking her head. "Look, I need help. I can't ask everyone in town because they're all super into Moira for no reason, and I know she's done something to cause it. I don't know why, but I'm the only one it hasn't worked on."

Slowly, the Wizard begins to nod along with her words. Oddly enough, he looks almost proud. "...You have the gift, girl."

"Gift?"

"Magic, girl, magic!" He bellows as though it should be obvious. "I've sensed the witch's machinations. I'm familiar with that bunch - witches, that is, can't trust a one of 'em..." He trails off, muttering something into his beard. "But no matter. I didn't know for sure whose doing it was or what the effects, but if, as you say, she's enchanted the townsfolk, then we can't let that lie."

He steps back from the door and opens it wide, inviting her in with a sweep of his arm. "We'll have to be quick. But come in, Abigail, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

\---

The burn on Abigail's arm sings with pain as she fends off Moira's blows, electricity crackling between them and in the air outside. She feels strong though, stronger than ever before, the magic sigils that she marked on her wrists and chest with ink after memorizing them from the Wizard's book fueling her far past her body's usual limits. And Moira is beginning to tire.

She doesn't know why Moira set her sights on Sebastian in particular or what she really intends to do with him. She doesn't care. The Wizard did indeed tell her everything she needed to know about how this sort of witch worked, and Abigail isn't about to let any of it happen to Pelican Town. Not to her friends and family. Not to her Sebastian.

She sees an opening and lunges, and only has time to see Moira's grin and realize her mistake as Moira's burning fingers close around her throat.

"Meddling - little - bitch!" Moira rattles her with each word, and then slams her against the wall, sending the sword clattering out of her grasp. Abigail clutches at the hands squeezing her neck, gasping, tears forming in her eyes as she feels her skin sizzle under the heat.

Moira bares all her teeth in a savage approximation of her typical smile, leaning in close. "Think you're so smart, think you're some kind of hero, you little-"

Abigail does the only thing she can think of and sinks her teeth into Moira's nose. Moira screeches and jerks away, and there is a sickening tearing noise as not all of her nose comes with her. She releases Abigail, staggering back with her hands clamped over her face, blood seeping from between her fingers.

Maybe it's Moira. Maybe it's Mother Nature. Maybe it's Abigail herself, alight with righteous fury and terror and the knowledge bestowed upon her just that afternoon that she really was something special after all. Whatever it is, the lightning bolt strikes the farmhouse dead on, shattering the window and searing the wood, and then nothing can be heard over the deafening crack of thunder that follows.

Abigail throws herself over Sebastian's unconscious body as the unbearable heat rolls over her. There is a stench of burnt hair throughout the farmhouse, and the faintly-audible crackle of the splintered wooden frame beginning to burn.

Abigail's questing fingers close over the hilt of the dagger that Moira had dropped and she grasps it tightly even as the metal sears her skin. She wheels around just in time to come face to face with Moira, wild eyes mirroring each other, and Abigail doesn't let herself think as she plunges the blade into Moira's throat.

Moira gags and gurgles, falling back again with wide eyes. Abigail tears her gaze away and turns to Sebastian again. The flames are beginning to lick at the house's frame in earnest now. She grabs Sebastian under the arms and staggers to her feet, dragging him to the door. She glances back one last time as Moira collapses.

There is no trial. There is no hysteria, no crowd screaming for justice. No dying curse upon the town, not even a proper stake and funeral pyre.

But the witch still burns.

\---

The sky breaks open as she collapses into the dirt outside with Sebastian in her arms. Abigail lays there for several minutes with her cheek pressed into the mud and her eyes closed, just breathing. Everything smells like burning.

She eventually sits up and turns towards the farmhouse, still in flames despite the battering rain.

She hopes it burns to the ground.

Sebastian groans and begins to stir as the rain pelts him. Abigail quickly turns back to him. "Sebastian! Are you okay!?"

"Huh? Abby?" He blinks at her groggily. She doesn't correct him on the nickname. He sits up with another groan, holding his head. "...What the hell? Where are we?" Any further questions are cut off as she flings her arms around him, squeezing tightly despite all of her body's own protests. He gives up on questions after a moment and hugs her back.

"What-" he begins again when she pulls away, before looking alarmed. "Where did your eyebrows go!?"

"Huh?" Abigail instinctively touches her face to find that her eyebrows have indeed been singed off. Now that she gets a good look, it looks like part of Sebastian's hair was burnt off too, making his haircut even more asymmetrical. She can't do anything but laugh, and just as quickly she crumples and begins to sob. "I- oh Yoba, I'm so glad you're okay. I was so scared." She presses back into him, clinging to the front of his shirt. Sebastian holds her more gingerly this time, starting to notice the burns on her arm and hands and the bloodstain on his shirt.

"It's okay," he says awkwardly. It is and isn't true.

Abigail nods against his chest. "It will be," she says finally. She wipes her eyes, though the rain keeps running into them anyway, and smiles through her tears. "You're never gonna believe me when I tell you what happened."

Sebastian glances back at the smoldering farmhouse. "Try me. Last thing I remember, I was in my room trying to figure out how Moira kept getting in there and what I was going to do with all the quartz she kept giving me."

Abigail takes his hand in her unburnt one and squeezes. "I'll tell you everything, I promise. But... let's go home first? I don't think anybody knows where we are, and I've got... all this to take care of." She gestures at herself. Sebastian nods and helps her to her feet.

They keep hold of each other's hands as they make their way back to town through the pouring rain.

**Author's Note:**

> I named the player character Moira here after the Moirae, the name for the Fates in Greek. Inspired by the fact that you can actually do some pretty messed up stuff in Stardew Valley using magic, namely screwing with people's memories and relationships.


End file.
